MADISON, Ala. (WHNT) — Some residents in Madison are unhappy with The United States Postal Service. They say they receive their letters from the mail carrier late at night and they fear this leaves an opening for their items to be stolen.

Susan Seavers lives on Oakwood Meadows Road in Madison. For the last two years, she says her mail gets delivered around 8:30 at night – sometimes as late as 9:40 p.m.

“There’s five or six of us on this road and some days everyone gets a package. Most days, someone gets at least one package…and that comes around 2 o’clock. Why not bring the mail then? I don’t like anything sitting in my mailbox overnight. There’s far too much theft going on. They may be checking for checks too. I actually did have one go missing,” Seavers said. 

Seavers tells News 19 she never spoke up because she believed this was only happening to her.

“Then it kept coming up in the Next-Door app and all my neighbors were saying the same thing. So, I decided to see if we could get something done about this,” said Seavers. 

News 19 reached out to The United States Postal Service to find out why their deliveries would be running late. They say they’re seeing serious staffing and hiring challenges.

A spokesperson sent us the following statement:

“Like many businesses, the U.S. Postal Service is facing staffing and hiring challenges nationwide and continues to aggressively hire in many locations across the country, including Madison, Alabama. With a workforce of more than 635,000, the Postal Service is one of the nation’s largest employers.

The Madison Post Office has skilled management in place, overseeing the day-to-day operations and using every available resource at our disposal to overcome any staffing issues. All available mail and packages are delivered daily. In addition to letter mail, each carrier delivers approximately 250 to 400 packages a day. Recently, the management team changed carriers’ schedules to report earlier in the day.

In the past three months, the Madison Post Office hosted three successful job fairs which attracted applicants interested in delivery positions. All job opportunities may be found online at www.usps.com/careers.

Ninety-eight percent of the nation’s population receives their mail and packages in less than three days. The Postal Service is working hard to correct service-related issues in the other limited areas. We understand our customers depend on our service, and we are working hard to meet the needs of the Madison community.”

Debra Jean Fetterly, USPS Spokesperson, Alabama-Mississippi District

Seavers says when she reached out to the postmaster for help, they told her if she purchased a P.O. Box it would speed up her delivery.

“I would have to go all the way down to Hughes Road…eight miles one way, down two of the busiest roads now in Madison to pick up my mail, and then eight miles back – that’s easy 45 minutes a day that I just don’t care to spend in traffic,” added Seavers. 

We checked the U.S. Post Office’s job postings for Alabama – all 90 job publishings were in the delivery & customer service category.